


just another punchline in your stand up tragedy

by SilverHeart09



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F, Judoon prison rescue fic, the Doctor does NOT do well with being alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverHeart09/pseuds/SilverHeart09
Summary: Sometimes, when her eyes finally slid shut, she dreamt.A child standing under a purple sky, a burnt orange planet, a burning planet.She always woke up crying from these dreams, for the family she’d lost, for the adoptive mother who’d experimented on her foundling, for the founding fathers of Gallifrey who’d lied to her.She smashed her fist against a wall and received another dart in the neck for her trouble.---Or, what would happen if someone other than Jack went out looking for her.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 32
Kudos: 133





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Back on my Corsair bullshit. I tried writing a fic like this with Jack in it several times but could never get it going! This was more fun.

‘LET ME OUT!’

The Doctor kicked the door of her cell as hard as she could, feeling panicked tears at the corners of her eyes. She pounded on it with her fists, screamed as loudly as she could down the corridor, smacked it repeatedly with her boot.

No-one came.

‘Please! Please let me out!’

The corridor was silent and she couldn’t even hear the voices of other prisoners, let alone a guard or two. Surprise had very quickly turned into panic, which had then turned into a total breakdown, but after four hours no-one was hearing her shouts for help. Her sonic wasn’t working, her phone had no signal, her TARDIS was god knows how far away. Her fam were - 

The Doctor could feel her hearts pounding wildly in her chest and her hands were shaking, knuckles bleeding as she continued to hammer the door and shout and scream. She couldn’t stay here, she couldn’t! She had to get back to her fam, they probably all thought she was dead! She couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have any of them thinking she was gone let alone Yaz. She had to see Yaz, had to speak to her, had to tell her -

Something pricked her neck and the Doctor lifted a hand to feel a thin needle sticking out of her skin.

‘Rude,’ she mumbled as her vision blurred and she slumped unsteadily to the floor. The panic was dissipating a little as whatever sedative they’d pumped into her flooded her system, but very quickly it returned and the Doctor tried to fight it; struggling back to her feet and weekly hitting the door with the palms of her hands. She wouldn’t be experimented on again, she  _ wouldn’t.  _ No more drugs. No more, no more, no -

She fell backwards as everything went black. 

\---

Yaz held her warm mug of tea, draped a blanket over her legs, and sat in the window of her flat; looking out across the quiet Sheffield night sky. No aliens, no danger, no spaceships, only the peace and quiet of a city at rest. 

She hated it.

Yaz took a sip of her tea and pressed her forehead against the glass of the window, feeling the ache in her heart that constantly pressed against her tear ducts and made her want to burst into loud, heartbroken sobs. Her family were worried about her, that was part of the reason why she’d finally moved out and had found her own place. She couldn’t bear their looks, the eyes she could feel boring into her back. What was she supposed to say? They wouldn’t believe the truth even if they heard it, especially considering that explaining away Daniel Barton’s trick to make her no. 1 on the undesirables list had been hard enough. 

Yaz wiped her eyes crossly with the back of her hand. She’d done enough crying. It didn't help. She took out her phone instead and scrolled through the photos. There were so many of her and the Doctor, more than her and the rest of the fam. One of her favourites was a photo she’d snapped in the mirror after dressing up for Barton’s birthday party. The Doctor was beside her, dressed to the nines, grinning excitedly. Another was the Doctor looking up at her from a large glass of milkshake with a milk moustache on her upper lip, then there was the one where they’d gone to a planet where the rain temporarily changed the colour of your hair. Pink had suited the Doctor. Green had not suited Yaz. 

Hundreds of pictures, hundreds of memories, but they didn't compare to the real thing.

Yaz stopped on another favourite. The Doctor, arms and legs in the air with a happy smile on her face and the TARDIS in the background. It was one of her favourite poses, so Yaz took the opportunity to snap as many photos of it as she could. She traced the Doctor's face, happy and vibrant through the screen, and started to sob. 

\---

Millions of light years and star systems away, the Doctor finished scratching a small stickman figure that was supposed to be Yaz into the hard stone wall of her cell and sat back to admire her handiwork.

‘Nowhere near as good as the real thing, of course,’ she said quietly, hand against the figure. ‘But better than nothing.’

She leant back against the wall, skin itching under the scratchy material of her prison jumpsuit, and looked out through the metal bars. Space stretched out beyond, vast and endless. She was surprised at how she was still able to find it beautiful, even after all these months stuck here, but then if you couldn’t appreciate the stars who were you? At least they’d stopped hitting her with tranquiliser darts, though she hadn’t had another breakdown following the first. 

‘I’m sorry, fam,’ the Doctor whispered quietly to the little stick figure family etched into the wall. ‘I was going to come back for you, I swear I was.’

She reached out and drew a heart with her finger around the stick figure etchings of her three friends. Her heart ached and she angrily wiped away a tear when it dripped down her cheek. Try as she might, she couldn’t help but mourn them; even if they were still safe and alive in Sheffield. She had a life sentence. Who knew how many regenerations that would be? Even if she did manage to escape, her friends would be long dead by the time she eventually made it back to Earth. 

‘I was coming back,’ the Doctor said again, sorrow in her words, and this time she didn't bother to wipe away the tears. She only drew her knees up to her chest and pressed her forehead against her knees. 

‘I was coming back.’

\---

The police station was surprisingly quiet the next day, only the usual drunks and students that had had one too many the previous night occupying the cells, and Yaz reached into her desk drawer for the paperwork she hadn’t finished from the day before. Fortunately, the Doctor had come up with a clever cover story for Barton’s trick and she’d been allowed to keep her job, though she suspected the majority of her colleagues now thought she was a secret agent. They kept winking at her. It was getting irritating. 

Her phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket to find a text from Ryan. It was a picture of a ship, like a pirate ship, and Yaz looked at it blankly, wondering what he was expecting her to do with this. 

Another text pinged, from Graham this time, and Yaz realised Ryan had posted the image on the team TARDIS group chat. It had remained reasonably active during the six months they’d been stuck on Earth. Minus the emoji-filled input of one person, of course. 

_ Graham: Why does that look familiar? _

Yaz zoomed in on the image, eyes casting over it. Now he’d mentioned it, it  _ did  _ look familiar. In fact, she was almost sure she could have seen it before…

_ Ryan: It’s parked in the harbour. Turned up last night out of the blue.  _

Now Yaz zoomed out, she saw the ship  _ was  _ parked down by the docks, opposite the warehouse Ryan was currently working in, but how had it gotten there? The shipping lanes were much too small for such a massive vessel to navigate through. 

_ Ryan: No-one else can see it. _

Yaz’s eyes boggled out and she stabbed out a reply with her thumbs. 

_ Yaz: What??? _

_ Ryan: I’m the only one that can see it. But you guys can too, right? Even an image? _

_ Graham: It’s clear as day to me. _

A ship only the three of them could see? This was making less and less sense. Yaz was so absorbed, bent over her phone, that she didn't notice her boss standing in front of her desk until he dropped a load of papers onto it, her pen holder falling over with a clang at the impact. 

‘We need to clear those cells,’ he told her, nose wrinkling in displeasure. ‘One of the occupants has set them all off singing. This one’s yours, good luck.’

Yaz shoved her phone back into her desk drawer and picked up the papers quickly. Now, more than ever, she needed to show to her boss that she was invested in her job. Especially with nothing else to occupy her time. 

\---

The Doctor pressed her forehead against the stone and tried to sleep. 

It was cold in her cell. The prison was old and the heating rarely worked. She had a blanket but suspected it was lice infected and had kicked it to the far corner of the room. Her head pounded in her skull and she gave up on sleep and flopped onto her back instead, gazing up at the ceiling. 

She’d initially thought that months of isolation would have helped her to process the trauma she’d gone through, but to no avail. It was still only a confused ball of torment in her head and she couldn’t untangle it no matter how hard she tried. She didn't do well trapped with her emotions. She needed someone to talk it over with. 

Her adoptive mother, experimenting on her,  _ murdering  _ her over and over again to tap into her regenerative abilities. She remembered King James’ words, on the bank at Bilehurst Craig all those months ago:

_ ‘How could any mother do that?’ _

‘I don’t know,’ she told him now, whispering the words in the dark of her cell. 

She remembered her upbringing. The grandmothers who had raised her, the Master who had run with her through the streets, the academy in the citadel with its great glass dome. 

All gone now. Burnt. Destroyed. Nuked. Obliterated. 

‘I don’t have a home,’ she said aloud. But then Gallifrey had never felt like her home, not really. She’d always felt more at home on Earth than on her native -

No, not native. Gallifrey hadn’t just never felt like home, it also  _ wasn’t  _ her home. She was from somewhere else. Another dimension. Another universe.

‘He could have lied?’ she pondered, but in her hearts she knew every word he’d said to her was true. Plus, clever though he was, the Master couldn’t have made up such an elaborate false history for her and delivered it with such conviction. He was a maniac, but at least he was an honest one. Most of the time.

‘I hate you,’ she said, and meant it. Her first friend, turned enemy, turned… what even was he now? A historian, apparently. 

A sudden banging on the cell door tore her out of her inner thoughts and the Doctor blinked, a hand coming up to cover her eyes as the cell door swung open and a Judoon stood there. 

‘Obligatory exercise hour. You will come with me,’ the Judoon said in its loud, authoritative voice. 

‘No ta,’ the Doctor mumbled, hands pressed against her eyes. ‘I’m good here thanks.’

Rough hands seized her arms and she grumbled as she was pulled to her feet and shoved towards the open cell door. There was no peace for her, no rest.

But at least there were stars. 

\---

Yaz’s head was still focused on the image of the ship as she headed down to the cells, forehead wrinkling as she tried to remember where she’d seen it before. It must have been in Sheffield, it can’t have been on their travels through time and space which already felt like a distant dream. But a pirate ship? Why would a pirate ship be -

She stepped into the holding room and came face to face with a familiar figure.

She was slumped against the wall, grinning widely, hair messed and clothes rumpled but Yaz would recognise her anywhere and suddenly the pirate ship made sense. 

‘Corsair?’

‘Hello human,’ the Corsair said, standing and stepping against the bars of her cell. Her expression hardened and her eyes glittered darkly. ‘Where’s the Doctor.’ 

\---

Sometimes, when her eyes finally slid shut, she dreamt. 

A child standing under a purple sky, a burnt orange planet, a  _ burning  _ planet. 

She always woke up crying from these dreams, for the family she’d lost, for the adoptive mother who’d experimented on her foundling, for the founding fathers of Gallifrey who’d  _ lied to her. _

She smashed her fist against a wall and received another dart in the neck for her trouble.

\---

‘What do you mean, you can’t tell me?’ the Corsair asked crossly once her and Yaz were outside and out of earshot of anyone who might find their conversation slightly more than conspicuous. She’d learnt that the Corsair had been arrested after coming to Earth to look for the Doctor, and accidentally getting into a bar fight. Yaz didn't believe that for a moment, it was more likely the Corsair had started the fight. 

‘I mean just that,’ Yaz said, unsure whether telling the Doctor's friend (?) the truth was really the best option. ‘I can’t tell you where she is.’ 

‘Is she alive?’

Yaz was silent, and the Corsair’s eyes narrowed. 

‘If my friend is dead, I deserve to know.’

‘I know,’ Yaz said quietly. ‘But I don’t think you want to know how she died.’

The Corsair looked at her for a moment. She wasn’t as heartless as many thought she was, and she’d noticed Yaz’s red eyes and the deep circles beneath them as soon as she’d clapped eyes on her. She wasn’t an expert on humans, but it didn't take an expert to notice when someone was clearly traumatised and miserable. 

‘Sit with me,’ the Corsair said after a pause, shrugging off her long brown coat and stretching it out on the ground, fishing a hairband off her wrist so she could tie back long dark locks. 

Yaz, heartbroken and lost, did as she was told. The grass was damp with dew still but the sun was warm. The Corsair reached into her pocket and pulled out a small bar of something with a deep purple wrapper. It looked like chocolate and she snapped off a piece and handed it to Yaz, prodding her until she took it. 

‘It’ll make you feel better,’ the Corsair said. ‘No drugs, no alcohol, completely safe.’

Yaz ate it and suddenly a warm feeling rushed over her. For the first time in a long time, she noticed the bird song in the trees and the rustle of leaves as the wind picked them up before throwing them back down. Children laughing, parents talking, dogs barking, suddenly she heard it all so much clearer.

‘It will wear off and I’m not giving you more,’ the Corsair told her. ‘It’s extremely addictive, but safe if you use it properly in small doses. Now, tell me what happened to the Doctor. You can be as vague as you like but I need to know how she died, if she really died.’

Yaz looked at her shoes, trying to choose her words with care. She knew the Corsair’s timeline ran slightly off kilter with the Doctor's and didn't want to accidentally blurt out that the Corsair’s home planet was now destroyed. 

‘We… were on a planet,’ she began hesitantly. ‘And there was this - army. This evil army. They wanted to conquer the universe, and the person leading the army had a weapon that could wipe out billions of people in one go.’

‘Super vague, carry on,’ the Corsair said, nodding thoughtfully. 

‘The Doctor managed to get the weapon,’ Yaz said quietly, voice dropping low. ‘And she - she -’

The Corsair’s brow furrowed but she stayed silent and let Yaz compose herself. 

‘She used it to destroy the planet and the army. She sent us home before so we’d be safe. She didn't have time to find cover before the explosion went off.’

Yaz dropped her head to her chest and, for a brief moment, the Corsair was silent beside her.

‘She destroyed a planet? What about the people on it?’

‘There were no people on it,’ Yaz mumbled, wiping away tears as the image of the Doctor's face flashed in her mind, of the last time she’d seen her. 

_ Get off me, Yaz! _

‘The planet was uninhabited?’

‘Yes.’

Yaz’s voice was a whisper, her hands clutching her legs so tightly she was sure they’d bruise. She couldn’t tell the Corsair her people were destroyed. She  _ mustn’t. _

‘Did you see her die? Did you find her body?’

Yaz looked up at the Corsair. 

‘Why are you asking me? I told you what happened. My best friend blew herself up to save the universe.’

‘I’m asking,’ the Corsair said, not unkindly. ‘Because Time Lords are  _ very difficult to kill,  _ and if there is even the  _ smallest smidgeon  _ of a chance that she’s still alive then I need to go find her. She might be hurt or alone. She’s probably alone and the Doctor alone is  _ never  _ a good thing, believe me. So, did you see her die or did you find her body?’

‘No,’ Yaz whispered. 

‘What was the planet you were on? I need to go check it. Also, did you recognise the army? Do you know what species they were?’

Yaz was silent, and stayed silent. 

‘Okay so I know I said vague but I need  _ some  _ information,’ the Corsair said, exasperated. ‘Don’t you want me to find her?’

‘She’s dead, Corsair,’ Yaz said, fighting back a wave of tears. 

‘Don’t you want a body to bury?’

‘Of course I do!’ Yaz yelled suddenly, drawing the attention of a number of people. ‘But it’s not possible, and I  _ can’t  _ tell you where we were and even if I could you wouldn’t be able to -’

Yaz shut up when she realised she was about to give the Corsair a vital clue as to where they’d been. The Doctor had once explained to them that planets such as Gallifrey - where their inhabitants had the ability to travel through time - were quantum locked, so you could only return in your own timestream, you couldn’t skip ahead to the future. The Corsair wouldn’t be able to see the spacial point where Gallifrey had once existed. 

‘Wouldn’t be able to  _ what?’  _ the Corsair asked, and Yaz saw her eyes were dark. 

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Yaz muttered, her eyes dropping back down to the grass. She was still in uniform and knew she should get back to work soon before anyone noticed she was missing, but the Corsair was - in a roundabout way - all that was left of her friend and she longed to place her head on the other woman’s chest to hear those double heartbeats and pretend they were the Doctor's.

‘Yaz! Found you! The ship, it’s the -!’

Ryan broke off when he saw Yaz sat with the Corsair, and Graham skidded to a halt beside him; out of breath from trying to keep up with his grandson.

‘Is it about the Doctor, is that why you’re here?’ Ryan asked her, eyes wide and full of eagerness. 

‘Yes, but human 1 was giving me a very vague and roundabout account of what happened,’ the Corsair replied with a sigh. ‘Look, I more than anyone know about the web of time and how it needs to be protected, especially considering the Doctor's timeline is way out of sync with my own, but I’m here because the Universe has gone dark and the Doctor is nowhere to be found.’

‘Gone dark?’ Graham said with a frown. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means evil has triumphed over good, yadda yadda yadda,’ the Corsair said, waving a hand impatiently. ‘The Doctor, for all her meddling and rule breaking, does an awful lot of good in the universe, but now she isn’t there any more it’s all gone a bit - what’s that delightful human term? -  _ tits up.  _ So, I’m going to ask you again and this time I expect a real answer.  _ Where’s the Doctor.’ _

Fortunately, it was at that moment that a small  _ pinging!  _ sound came from inside the Corsair’s jacket and she broke off, grumbling as she rummaged around for whatever it was making the sound. She withdrew a small handheld device, similar to a flip phone, and opened it. 

‘Kinda busy right now.’

_ ‘I’ve got some chatter you might be interested in.’ _

The voice was tinny through the speakers and the person on the other end had a strange, almost linting accent. It was nothing like Yaz had ever heard on Earth.

‘What chatter?’

_ ‘The Judoon picked someone up. It’s all over the scanners. High profile fugitive.’ _

‘Do we have a name?’ 

_ ‘No, and the description is vague. All I know is the fugitive has yellow hair. The Judoon aren’t great at genders so I can’t confirm male or female.’ _

‘Where was the fugitive picked up?’

_ ‘That’s the bit I thought you might be interested in. Earth. Thousands of years in the future. Judging by the destruction at the site, it looks like the Cybermen were there recently.’ _

The Corsair noticed Yaz, Graham, and Ryan exchanging uneasy glances. 

‘Got it, send the coordinates to my TARDIS.’

She closed the device and put it back in her pocket, then fixed the three humans with a look.

‘This “evil army” you were referring to,’ she said to Yaz with an expression that just dared the human to lie to her. ‘They weren’t Cybermen, by any chance?’

Yaz stayed silent, but that was answer enough.

‘It can’t be the Doc though,’ Graham said, shaking his head. ‘It just can’t.’

‘You seem very sure of that,’ the Corsair said, standing up and brushing grass from her trousers.

‘Where are you going?’ Ryan asked. He looked unwilling to let the Corsair out of his sight. 

‘To check out those coordinates and see where this fugitive was picked up,’ the Corsair replied. ‘Judoon transport leaves behind traces of urgon radiation. Easy to track. If they were there, I should be able to find out where they took the fugitive.’

‘Let us come with you!’ Yaz blurted out, and the Corsair raised an eyebrow. 

‘I thought you said there was no chance the Doctor was still alive?’

‘Weirder things have happened,’ Yaz whispered, not daring to hope. ‘Please. The Doctor keeps us around for a reason, we’re useful.’

‘Does she make you do the washing up or something?’ the Corsair asked, eyebrow raised.

‘That’s not quite what Yaz meant, but you’re not wrong,’ Graham admitted. ‘Please. If the Doc did somehow manage to survive, we want to help you find her. She’ll have been there for months!’

‘Please?’ Ryan asked, and the Corsair let out an exasperated groan.

_ ‘Fine.  _ But stay out of my way and if I tell you to do something you do it. Also, no -’

_ ‘Interfering,’  _ the three humans finished, and the Corsair grinned.

‘This might actually be easier than I thought.’

\---

The Doctor dreamt of Yaz. Sweet, beautiful Yaz. She’d pictured her face when she’d woken up on the cold, hard floor after escaping the matrix. Beautiful, soft brown eyes full of relief, a kind smile just for her.

A hand on her arm, gripping tightly, begging her not to leave.

Yaz thought she was dead. They all thought she was dead. 

‘This sucks,’ she told herself with feeling, then broke into a small smile. ‘Oh. Still talking to myself. Can’t be as bad as all that then.’

She pulled her phone out of her pocket. The Judoon had tried to take it but she’d managed to palm it back on her way out of the holding area. Her sonic was still in their possession though, but at least she had something to keep her sane, though there was only so much  _ Snake  _ you could play. She flipped it open to an image of her fam. It was a selfie, awkwardly taken by Graham and posted on the group chat, but they all looked so happy in it that she’d decided it deserved the honour of being her screen background.

‘Hang on fam,’ she mumbled quietly. ‘I’ll get out of here eventually.’ 

She shivered under her coat and leant her head against the wall, trying to think about what her fam would be doing right now. The stolen TARDIS would have taken them home -  _ is it stolen when there’s no-one’s left to steal it from? -  _ and they should be back on Earth by now, safe with the refugees from the future. 

‘You deserve to live the best lives,’ she said quietly. ‘Hopefully I haven’t messed them up for you.’

Her phone buzzed and her heart leapt into her throat as she opened it again. Maybe there was signal. Maybe her fam was calling her. Maybe the TARDIS was -

The battery was dead.

She put the phone in her pocket and huddled under her blanket.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

The Corsair’s ship hummed in what sounded like annoyance when Yaz, Graham, and Ryan stepped aboard. It reminded Yaz of a school trip she’d taken in year 8 to  _ The Golden Hind  _ in London, the infamous ship of Sir Francis Drake. It was large and grand, tall masts boasting brilliant folded sails above them, a polished wooden wheel sitting in the helm area. There were even canons bolted into the deck and the Corsair chucked her coat carelessly over a wooden beam as she stood in front of her wheel, peering down at a row of instruments set into it. 

‘Yes, yes. It won’t be for a long,’ she muttered, tapping at a glass display. 

‘What’s that?’ Graham asked. 

‘My TARDIS isn’t as welcoming as the Doctor's,’ the Corsair said absentmindedly. ‘She’s not a fan of strays. Right. Let’s enter those coordinates. Anything I should know? Am I going to be met with an army of cybermen?’

‘No, shouldn’t be,’ Yaz said. 

‘Reassuring,’ the Corsair said with a roll of her eyes. ‘Right. Hold onto something. This might get bumpy.’

Ryan, Yaz, and Graham - who took it very seriously whenever a Time Lord told them to _hold onto something_ - ran for cover and gripped hold of the wooden railings. The Corsair snapped her fingers and the great white sails unfurled from above their heads, catching the wind and blowing majestically.

Then the Corsair gripped hold of her wheel, pulled it sharply to the left, and the world tilted and then disappeared. 

Yaz had seen the time vortex through the window of the Doctor's TARDIS. The colours were like nothing she’d ever seen before, flashes of purples and blues and yellows, and that was through a  _ window.  _

Here, on the deck of the Corsair’s TARDIS, the time vortex was all around her and it was so breathtaking Yaz almost forgot to hold onto the railing.

‘Oh my days…’ she heard Graham breathe from somewhere behind her and Yaz could only agree. 

The sails flapped as the ship breezed through the time winds. The sensation Yaz was feeling in her gut was pulling, rather than pushing, but she supposed that made sense. When the old police box was hurtling towards its destination it did feel as though it was being dragged there kicking and screaming, whereas when they were floating inbetween adventures or the Doctor was repairing whatever gadget or gizmo had popped off the console this time it felt more like pushing, like the waves on a ship propelling it forward.

This was nothing like that though. This TARDIS meant  _ business.  _ It had somewhere to be and it had to be there  _ fast.  _

‘Almost there!’ the Corsair yelled back at them over the roar of the vortex. Despite the winds and the buffeting side to side and the general violence with which her ship was travelling she stood completely still at her wheel, tapping on the glass instruments and expertly piloting her vessel. 

Yaz looked overboard, her knuckles white on the railing she was gripping onto, and saw swirls of colour and shapes that looked almost like whirlpools opening up below her. The Doctor had, on one very dull evening, tried to explain space/time propulsion to her but Yaz had never quite understood it. 

Now, with that same propulsion open and raw around her, she understood it whole lot better. 

Suddenly the world tilted again and - in the time it took to blink - they were on solid ground with green grass below them and a blue sky above. 

Ryan fell over. 

‘Sorry. Well done for hanging on though,’ the Corsair said, holding out a hand to pull him back to his feet. ‘The number of people who’ve gone overboard…’

‘I’m glad you’re only telling us that now,’ Graham said, blinking hard against the sudden glare of the sun.

Then something strange happened. The deck of the ship shimmered as though it was a mirage on a desert horizon, and as Yaz looked she found the sky was growing darker and more distant as wooden beams appeared around her. In the time it took to blink, the deck was gone and she was inside a console room. It was similar to the Doctor’s but the decor was a little different. Instead of warm coral there was polished wood and shining metal. The ceiling was missing and instead there was a glass dome, similar to what you’d find in an observatory, with stars shining brilliantly overhead. 

The Corsair pulled her coat back on and caught her eye. 

‘It’s a little old fashioned to travel by the stars,’ she admitted. ‘But comforting.’

She strode towards the doors, pushed them open, and they stepped outside. 

Yaz looked around, dread landing like a stone in her gut. She recognised this place all too well. If she concentrated she could almost hear the decapitated heads of the Cybermen flying above them. 

‘Why are they called Cyber _ men?’  _ she asked the Corsair. ‘Don’t they convert females too?’

_ ‘That,’  _ the Corsair said, with feeling, ‘is a very good question.’ 

It was cold, colder than the last time they’d stepped foot in this time period, and Yaz hugged her jacket tightly around her shoulders. Beside her, Graham and Ryan looked dazed, stunned by their recent time travel and the TARDIS’ sudden transformation. Yaz wondered if that was the chameleon circuit kicking in. When she turned back, the TARDIS was an old crumbling shack. 

‘Anything look familiar?’ the Corsair asked, turning back to them, and Yaz nodded. 

‘Yeah. That’s the settlement we were at last time.’ 

‘Not much left of it,’ the Corsair said, squinting towards where Yaz was pointing. ‘That looks like cyber damage to me. Are you sure we’re not going to get any unwelcome visitors?’

‘No,’ Yaz said, shaking her head. ‘They’ve gone.’

The Corsair didn't look convinced. 

‘The TARDIS should be over that hill,’ Ryan said, pointing into the distance. 

‘Why is it so far away?’ the Corsair said, face creased. ‘That just means you had to walk for ages.’

‘And don’t we bloody know it,’ Graham grumbled.

As soon as the TARDIS came into view, however, the three humans practically sprinted towards it. 

‘I can’t believe it’s still here!’ Graham said. ‘I mean, I know there’s nowhere else it could have gone but look at it! It’s been so long I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt it all up.’

‘Hey, can you let us in?’ Ryan asked politely, but the doors remained closed.

When Yaz turned around to ask the Corsair if she had a spare key, she found her closely inspecting a tree. 

‘Thinking of doing some remodelling?’ Graham asked, thinking of the wooden console room. ‘You could make a lovely dresser out of that wood.’ 

‘Not quite,’ the Corsair murmured, tapping her knuckles against it. ‘Very interesting though. How on  _ earth  _ did this get here? Are you sure it was just the four of you that came here last time?’

‘Yeah, then we met those people in the village,’ Ryan confirmed. ‘What do you mean how did it get here? It’s a tree. It grew out of the ground.’

The Corsair ignored him, though Yaz did catch her mumbling something about  _ tiny minds  _ as she walked over to the blue police box and inspected it carefully. 

‘Looks like it’s been here for a while,’ she concluded. ‘The Doctor confiscated my key after the otter incident but if I ask nicely  _ hopefully…’ _

But she’d barely put her hand against the wood before the door swung inward and the cacophony of sounds assaulted their ears. A high pitched wailing, followed by an alarm, followed by the urgent chirps and whistles of the TARDIS herself. 

‘What the bloody hell -?’

Graham pressed his hands over his ears and Yaz ran after the Corsair who was already halfway to the console. The lights were red and flashing above their heads, the alarm increasing in volume and the TARDIS practically yelling at them to hurry up. 

As the Corsair fussed over the ship and started manipulating the controls, Yaz looked around the console room with dismay at the state of decay the ship had fallen into. Weeds had somehow snaked their way in and parts of the console had rusted and fallen off. The lights were dimmed, aside from the red emergency lights which were the only source of light, and there was a metallic burning smell in the air. Wisps of smoke trickled up from between the grating in the floor and the TARDIS moaned miserably as the Corsair tried to console her. 

‘No wonder the Doctor's always doing repairs if this is what happens when she doesn’t,’ Ryan muttered. 

‘I don’t understand,’ Graham said, shaking his head in confusion. ‘The TARDIS wasn’t like this the last time we were here, not with all the lights going and everything. Do you think… I mean I know we all agreed that was probably it but you don’t suppose…’

‘She’s still alive,’ Yaz breathed. ‘She made it back here.’

‘But what happened?’ Ryan asked. ‘Why didn't she come and find us? And  _ how  _ did she get here?’

Yaz’s mind went back to the Corsair’s TARDIS, transformed from a grand pirate ship to a tiny little hut, and when she turned back to her she found the Corsair had tied up her long dark hair and was currently elbows-deep in the TARDIS console.

‘That tree,’ Yaz said slowly. ‘It was a TARDIS, wasn’t it? One with a working chameleon circuit.’

‘Yup,’ the Corsair said, face scrunched in concentration. ‘No clue how it got here. It looked relatively new. Must have come straight from Gallifrey. Ah-ha! Got you.’

She pulled something out of the console and the alarm cut out, leaving the room in blissful silence. 

‘Phew! Much better,’ the Corsair said with a grin, extracting herself from the console. ‘Now I can hear myself think, let’s see where she ended up.’

‘I just can’t believe it,’ Graham said with a shake of his head. ‘I thought that was it. That she was a goner. How could she have survived?’

‘She did what she always does,’ the Corsair said, looking up at him from over the console with a cautious expression. ‘She stole a TARDIS and ran away. So now I know you came from Gallifrey.’

The three humans froze.

‘Which is slightly concerning,’ the Corsair went on, ‘because  _ you -’  _ (here she pointed at Yaz) ‘told me the Doctor got a weapon off the evil man and used it to destroy him, supposedly herself, and the planet they were all on to save the universe. Which would mean, ipso facto, that she destroyed Gallifrey.’

‘I plead the fifth!’ Graham said quickly. 

‘I bet you do,’ the Corsair muttered darkly. 

‘Corsair -’ Yaz began, but the Time Lord waved her off with her hand. 

‘It’s alright,’ she said. ‘You were right to not tell me anything. I’d rather not know what happens to my home planet in the far off future.’ 

The TARDIS began to beep urgently and the Corsair wiped dust and debris away from one of its screens, peering at it in confusion. 

‘The Shadow Proclamation? What do the Judoon want with her?’

‘Wait, that’s those space rhinos isn’t it!’ Ryan said, eyes out on stalks. 

‘You’ve met them already?’ the Corsair asked. 

‘There was a mix up with our Doctor and a future version of her,’ Yaz explained. ‘We’re not sure what happened exactly. Captain Jack Harkness teleported us onto his ship while we were looking for the fugitive and -’

_ ‘Captain Jack Harkness?!’ _

‘You… know him? Do you?’ Graham said slowly, noting how the Corsair looked ready to hit something.

‘If I ever see that man again…’ she growled, but she was cut off when the TARDIS console  _ buzzed  _ and she glared at it. ‘Fine! Fine. Finding the Doctor first, strangling Jack later.’ 

She bent over the console again, fingers flying over the controls and a frown on her face as she worked. The TARDIS was slowly beginning to power up again, creaking sounds echoing throughout the console room which sounded like the old girl was having a stretch. Ryan brushed a vine away from one of the hexagonal walls and a panel flashed briefly, as though it was thanking him. 

‘How could she have survived?’ Yaz whispered in an aside to Ryan and Graham, huddled together by the Doctor's science station. ‘She seemed so sure we weren’t going to see her again.’

‘At least now we know why she didn't come back,’ Graham replied. ‘If the Judoon nabbed her as soon as she made it back to the TARDIS.’ 

‘How long has she even been there?’ Ryan wondered. ‘Six months for us could be way longer for her.’

Yaz felt a pain echo deep in her chest. The Doctor, abandoned and alone somewhere without her friends. Just how long had she been away?

‘Got her,’ the Corsair said, stepping away from the console and to the door. ‘This TARDIS needs a bit of TLC, we’ll have to take mine.’

The TARDIS bonged angrily and the Corsair stroked a column soothingly. 

‘We’ll come back for you,’ she said to it gently. ‘But you’re in no state to fly and we can’t wait to patch you up. Don’t worry. I’ll be back with your pilot soon.’

The lights dimmed to a low blue colour and the Corsair patted the column again before turning to the humans.

‘I traced the transport pulse. It ended in a Judoon outpost about nine solar systems over, four thousand three hundred and twenty six lightyears away, left a bit, right at the crossing, then keep going straight ahead till you reach Corrix. If we hit Lulop I’ve overshot it, remind me.’

‘Will do,’ Yaz muttered.

‘And that’s where the Doc is?’ Graham asked anxiously. 

‘That’s where the signal ends,’ the Corsair said, hurrying them all out of the TARDIS and closing the door firmly behind her. ‘Hopefully, that’s where the Doctor will be too.’ 

\---

It was obligatory exercise hour time again. AKA, the Doctor's least favourite time of day.

It was no secret who she was. Her existence in this prison had spread like wildfire throughout the cells. Everyone knew who she was, and everyone who knew wanted a piece of her. The Doctor found that her ‘obligatory exercise’ usually consisted of punching several other prisoners hard in the face so they’d leave her alone, but at least that had meant that most of them had backed off and now stood angrily watching her rather than trying to engage in a fist fight.

The Doctor looked down at her hands, now bruised and sore. What would her friends think if they saw her fighting dirty? For someone who abhorred violence, she sure seemed to be doing a lot of it at the moment. 

_ But then, you’re not who you thought you were,  _ she considered darkly.  _ Maybe this is the person you were always meant to be, picking on others and taking advantage of their fear. Maybe this is what it’s like to be the Master. _

She shook her head, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms across her chest as she shuddered. No matter how lonely and lost she was, she mustn’t sink down to his level. 

_ Yeah,  _ the voice whispered tauntingly.  _ Cause look where that got you.  _

In the shower that evening, the Doctor closed her eyes and allowed the cold water to cascade over her. It was always sub-zero in the shower blocks but she’d managed to get her cleaning routine down to 56 seconds and was working on getting it even lower. 

She soaped up her hair, wincing at its length. She’d asked one of the guards if she could borrow a pair of scissors to give it a bit of a trim but unsurprisingly they hadn’t been keen on that suggestion. Arming the prisoners probably wasn’t a good idea. 

Turning off the water, she dried herself quickly in the threadbare piece of cloth that served as a towel and pulled her prison jumpsuit back on, lamenting - as she always did - the loss of her long grey coat. She wondered where her sonic screwdriver was, she hoped it was safe. 

Back in her cell, her still wet hair dripping droplets of cold water down her skin, the Doctor pulled her knees up to her chest and resorting back to her favourite, and only, hobby - looking out of the window. 

She still hadn’t managed to work out where she was. The star system she was in was unfamiliar and there were no helpful nebulas or star clusters to give her a helping hand. Even the other prisoners didn't help. Their races were so vast and random that she couldn’t work out where the nearest solar system even  _ was.  _

Her fingers reached out to trace the stickmen drawing of her fam, as she always did every night. What had once brought her a quiet kind of peace now only served to further hammer in her anguish. Her fam still thought she was dead, her TARDIS was abandoned and alone, and she would never see them again. The cuffs jangled on her wrists. After numerous break out attempts at the beginning the guards always kept her locked up at night now. The metal dug painfully into her wrist and her head spun from the sedatives they’d given her. 

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you,’ she told her fam, her voice scratchy and sore. ‘I thought I was protecting you. Turns out I was only protecting myself. You would have understood. That’s what friends do.’

She closed her eyes, head lent back against the wall, and tried to hum herself to sleep. She went through all of Mozart’s sonatas and was just about to start on Brahm’s when a flashing image shot across her mind and she dragged herself from the half-dozing state she’d managed to lull herself into. 

Her adoptive mother leaning over her, the Master’s cruel snarl, the burning embers of Gallifrey covering the once red grass in ash. 

She tapped her foot against the grey stone, a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold seizing her small frame. There was no escape from them, there would never be any escape from them, only the anger and the cold and the  _ burning -  _

‘Hey, can you hear me?’

Yaz blinked in front of her vision and the Doctor tilted her head at her, her bones aching with exhaustion. Yaz always appeared when she was tired. She knew she wasn’t really here, knew she was just hallucinating, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. 

‘We came back for you,’ Yaz said, smiling softly. This was another thing her made-up Yaz always said, the promises that they would see each other again, that they wouldn’t give up on each other. Usually it was ‘ _ we’re coming back for you’  _ though. She was getting her tenses mixed up in the drug induced haze she always seemed to be in. 

‘You think I’m dead,’ the Doctor countered. ‘Why would you waste your time on a ghost?’

‘Would you waste your time on us?’

It used to be reassuring, hearing her imagination speaking like this, but as the months had gone by it only burned like an arrow in her heart instead. 

The Doctor blinked hard but Yaz didn't disappear like she usually did. She wasn’t sure she could tolerate the lies this evening. She’d rather the silence than empty promises. 

‘Leave me alone,’ she said instead, turning her head to look out the window. 

‘That’s it then, is it, cockle?’

‘Go away, Graham,’ she muttered, hands pressed against her ears. ‘You’re not here.’

‘But if I was, I’d tell you to not give in, wouldn’t I?’ Graham shot back at her. ‘You’re better than this.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘Yes you are,’ Ryan countered, and when she opened her eyes she saw the three of them kneeling in front of her. ‘You’re the Doctor. You’re the strongest person we know. You’ll get through this, just like you’ve gotten through everything else we’ve been through.’

‘Please don’t give up,’ Yaz whispered, and when the Doctor looked at her she was shocked to see tears in the human’s eyes. Yaz hadn’t cried when she’d imagined her before, why was she doing it now?

‘We came back for you, love,’ Graham said, his voice gentle and his eyes calm. ‘We’re just sorry it took so long.’

Different clothes, he was wearing different clothes. They were  _ all  _ wearing different clothes.

‘You’re not real,’ the Doctor said, forehead creased in confusion. ‘You’re not here.’

Ryan reached out and took hold of her hand. She felt it in her own, squeezing her fingers reassuringly.  _ She felt it. _

‘I’m as real as I’ve always been,’ he told her firmly. ‘And so are you. Now come on, off the floor. I don’t know how the Corsair was planning on creating a diversion but I expect it’s gonna be violent. She was  _ pissed.’ _

The Doctor's hearts pounded so frantically they almost went out of sync.

‘The - the Corsair?’

Then there was a  _ whump  _ from somewhere deep below, a shudder shook the whole room, and the alarms went off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank Maze of Doom aka 'The Thassie Book' for giving me motivation to finish this story <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Bet you thought I'd forgotten about this one. 
> 
> I'll let you into a secret, I had. 
> 
> But with the new episode only 13 DAYS AWAY I thought I'd dust it off again <3

Diversions were her fourte. So were baking mince pies under pressure, though she tended to keep that one to herself. The Judoon post was just like any other jail: poorly designed. There wasn’t a jail in the universe the Corsair couldn’t break into, or out of, depending on which way the wind was blowing. 

Finding the Doctor had been easy. Once she’d hacked into the miserable excuse of software the Judoon used for their security it had only been a matter of scanning the facility before she found the Doctor. There were loads of aliens with 2+ hearts across the universe, but only one race that looked humanoid. Oh wait, she was forgetting the Zergelth.  _ Two  _ races that looked humanoid, but she’d be impressed (and also slightly terrified) if the Zergelth had made it into this universe. 

Watching the three humans on the monitor, she noticed they’d found the Doctor and were now trying to convince her to leave the cell. Turning on the sound, she heard that the Doctor didn't believe they existed. That may be a problem. She wasn’t surprised they’d had to drug her to keep her compliant, however. Good girl. 

‘Let’s see how you like this,’ she growled, fingers flying across the keys as she initiated the  _ teeniest  _ of chain reactions inside the jail’s internal weapons systems. A tiny reaction, but enough for a big boom.

The facility rocketed from side to side and the Corsair sprinted for the stairs, smashing her fist against the cells’ override panel as she did so. 

All across the facility, cell doors clicked open.

The Doctor would doubtless tell her off for that later, but one thing at a time. 

She sprinted up the stairs and kicked open a security door, elbowing and shoving her way through newly released prisoners who were scrambling about looking for the exit. There was a slight twinge of guilt at the thought she may have just released thousands of dangerous prisoners back into society, but she’d inevitably end up re-catching and collecting the bounties for them at some point in the future. 

‘Down here!’ she yelled when she spotted the three humans, practically pulling the Doctor along behind them who was looking around her with an almost bemused expression. When she caught sight of the Corsair, however, her jaw dropped open.

‘Hello, darling,’ the Corsair said, heaving the Doctor's arm over her shoulder and dragging her along, kicking an Alcrarian out of the way as they fought their way back to the exit. 

‘I’ve not hallucinated you before,’ the Doctor admitted blearily. 

‘Rude,’ the Corsair muttered.

‘Is this really happening?’ she asked, looking around with vacant, unfocused eyes. 

'If I say yes would you believe me?'

'No,' the Doctor admitted. 

'Well then.'

Three Judoon, fully armed with their guns pointed directly at the five of them came around the corner. 

Quick as a flash, the Corsair smashed her elbow into a panel next to them and it sparked, emitting a dazzling light that stunned the poor Judoon. 

'Rhinos have poor eyesight,' the Corsair informed them, pulling the confused Doctor down the corridor. ‘Come on you lot, get moving. Unless you want to see their hospitality up close.’

‘The shower facilities leave much to be desired,’ the Doctor muttered darkly.

‘How can you have poor eyesight and still be a copper?’ Graham yelled from behind them. ‘Don’t they have to do an eye exam?’

‘Should have gone to Specsavers!’ Ryan agreed. 

Yaz grabbed hold of the Doctor's hand to help the Corsair pull her along, but the Doctor only looked at their conjoined hands in confusion. 

‘You - feel real.’

‘I am,’ Yaz replied. ‘Now come on!’

As if on cue the Doctor stumbled, landing heavily on her knees. She stayed there for a few moments, making no effort to get up, until the Corsair hauled her up by her armpits and swung her arm over her shoulder again, the other hand tightly gripping the Doctor's waist. 

‘What did they give you?’ she muttered angrily. ‘You’ve got the coordination of a baby giraffe.’

The Doctor laughed and then looked confused, as though she hadn’t meant to catch herself doing so. 

_ Or she hasn’t laughed for a while,  _ Yaz pondered sadly. 

Ryan had retrieved what looked like the broken bar from one of the cells and was brandishing it at anyone who got too close behind them. The prison was in pandemonium. Angry prisoners roared and threw things, Judoon shouted in that peculiar bellowing rhyming language and there was the sound of gunfire and banging, too close for Yaz’s liking. 

Their little group continued elbowing and battling their way along the corridor, the Corsair almost carrying the Doctor at this point, until they’d arrived on the floor where the Corsair had left her TARDIS, safely disguised as a cleaning cupboard.

Unfortunately for them, however, the Judoon were waiting for them.

‘COLD CASE. THE CORSAIR.’ one of the Judoon bellowed.

‘Balls,’ the Corsair muttered. 

‘AVOIDED CAPTURE FOLLOWING ROBBERY OF THE DIAMOND MARKET OF SOVAK PRIME. SENTENCE: 50,000 YEARS IN SHADA.’

‘How do you get 50,000 years and I get whole of life imprisonment?’ the Doctor mumbled drunkenly from her shoulder. 

‘High Council cut a deal with the Shadow Proclamation,’ the Corsair explained, ‘considering it was Rassilon I was stealing for. Didn't mean I had any intention of serving my time though, got better things to do.’

‘How are we gonna get past them, exactly?’ Graham asked. ‘There’s five of them.’

‘Five of us,’ the Corsair retorted. ‘We can take one each.’

Ryan paled, and the Corsair laughed. 

‘I’m joking, obviously. Hang onto her and stay here.’

Ryan suddenly found himself with an armful of sedative-drunk, uncoordinated Doctor who almost knocked him to the floor and would have done had Yaz and Graham not caught her.

‘Why do you all feel so solid,’ the Doctor complained. ‘This really isn’t fair. Yaz is even in uniform!’

‘You’ll be home soon, love,’ Graham said, patting her head reassuringly. ‘Maybe you’ll believe us then.’

Yaz brushed dirty hair away from her friend’s face. Aside from her eyes, which were blown and glazed, she looked almost the same. Her cheeks were more gaunt, however, skin dry and lips cracked. She was paler (which was an impressive feat considering how pale she’d been before) and she felt lighter in Yaz’s arms, more fragile.

She was also staring at Yaz intently, or trying to at least but Yaz could tell the drugs were dragging her back under. 

‘Your badge number,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s 358.’

‘Yeah,’ Yaz said, not knowing where she was going with this.

‘I didn't know that.’

‘It’s not really the kind of thing I’d expect you to remember,’ Yaz said, confused.

‘And it’s a really weird thing to notice now,’ the Doctor mumbled, eyes sliding shut. ‘You know, since you’re a hallucination.’

‘Jesus!’ Graham exclaimed suddenly, and Yaz looked up to realise that - whilst they’d been distracted with their friend - the Corsair had dealt with the Judoon and they were now lying prone on the floor, some groaning and failing at getting back up on their feet.

‘Come on,’ the Corsair said, looking more dishevelled and bending down to pick up the now unconscious Doctor. ‘Places to be. I don’t want to be hanging around when they wake up.’

As the others filed into the TARDIS, Yaz looked back at the chaos the Corsair had created and couldn’t help but smile. Prisoners running free, a full on brawl going on, angry shouting from the Judoon echoing around the metal walls.

She was a little surprised at herself for being happy at the lack of law and order, but she had the Doctor back. So screw them. 

She closed the TARDIS door behind her and the ancient groaning echoed down the corridor.

* * *

‘She’s not gonna wake up if you keep staring at her like that,’ Graham informed Yaz, handing her a cup of tea.

‘You don’t know that,’ Yaz retorted, adjusting the blanket around the Doctor's shoulders for the upteenth time in goodness knows how many minutes.

It had been the Corsair’s decision to keep her on the TARDIS rather than deposit her at Graham’s. Something to do with residual artron energy in the atmosphere and temporal harmonious wavelengths that would help her to readjust. 

Or something, Ryan had tried to keep up but it was as though she’d been speaking another language. 

The Doctor's TARDIS had been transferred from the future and, after the Corsair had run it through the Intergalactic Spaceship Wash, was now a beautiful shining blue once again. It was inside the console room of the Corsair’s own TARDIS and it sounded as though the two ships were talking to each other, the occasional beep and whistle sounding back and forth between the two.

The Doctor was in her own TARDIS, on the sofa in the library bundled in as many blankets as Yaz had been able to find. How she managed to stay asleep with the sound of the Corsair banging around in the console room in the background Yaz wasn’t sure. It sounded as though she was dismantling the console, although Yaz wouldn’t blame her considering the state it was in.

‘What do you think she went through?’ Ryan asked suddenly, breaking through Yaz’s thoughts.

‘On Gallifrey?’

‘And in that jail cell. We didn't even get the chance to ask if she was okay after whatever it was the Master did to her.’

‘You think he hurt her?’

Ryan tilted his head to the side, sad eyes looking at their unconscious friend silently.

‘Yaz, we found her face down on the floor,’ Graham pointed out. ‘And she wasn’t exactly with it when she woke up.’

‘I wonder why she didn't tell us about Gallifrey,’ Yaz wondered. ‘When do you think it happened? Before Gloucester and the Judoon she said he - the Master - had left her a message, and she was going home without us everytime she dropped us off to explore somewhere. It must have happened before then.’

‘She was going home on her own to walk around in the destruction of her home planet,’ Graham said, shaking his head miserably. ‘I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been.’

‘She should have included us,’ Ryan said, suddenly annoyed. ‘We’re her family.’

‘Yeah but it is a bit private, especially if it had just happened,’ Graham told his grandson. ‘You can’t blame her for keeping it from us.’

The Doctor frowned in her sleep, mumbling something indecipherable, and Yaz smoothed down her hair softly. 

‘No wonder she was such a mardy mess,’ Yaz muttered. ‘Keeping things from us, looking miserable when she thought we weren’t looking, snapping at us all the time.’

‘I’m sure she didn't mean it,’ Graham said, putting a hand on Yaz’s shoulder. ‘Remember how happy she was we found her on Gallifrey, that smile.’

‘Before she pointed out humans weren’t allowed on Gallifrey,’ Ryan said with a chuckle. 

‘What do you think he did to her?’ Yaz whispered. ‘What was all that she was rambling about? She mentioned memories and said - what was it?’

‘“We’re all clever”,’ Graham remembered. “‘However many that is”.’

‘Not a clue,’ Ryan said, shaking his head. 

‘How’s she doing?’ the Corsair said, reappearing in the doorway. ‘Console is back up and running, just about.’

‘She’s -’

To her shock, Yaz felt a tear drip down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand. The Corsair noticed though, and crossed the room to kneel down beside her friend. She placed a hand on the Doctor's cheek and Graham saw her mouth the word  _ contact. _

The Doctor - whose face had been screwed up in what looked like pain - relaxed immediately, head flopping onto the Corsair’s hand. 

‘She’s fine,’ the Corsair said, adjusting the blanket in the same way Yaz had been only moments before. ‘She’ll be asleep for a bit longer. Come on you lot, we should let her get some rest.’

‘We’re not leaving,’ Graham said quickly. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Corsair. We’d prefer to stay.’

The Corsair looked at them, determined faces looking back at her as though they were all guarding her friend. 

‘Suit yourself,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Let me know if she’s still out of when she wakes up, I might need to run her blood through a microdisplacement immersion process.’

‘That - doesn’t sound pleasant,’ Ryan said with a wince.

‘She won’t feel it,’ the Corsair said. She gave her friend one more concerned look, then left the room. Graham got up and knelt in front of the fireplace, coaxing the fire to life until it was roaring and the Doctor's cheeks were getting a bit more colour in them. Yaz hadn’t noticed that it was cold in the room, the Doctor always felt slightly colder than them anyway, but she looked more settled. Ryan kicked back on the other sofa, his phone in his hand as he started texting, and Yaz sat beside the Doctor's head, retrieving a book and finding where she’d marked her place with a bookmark. 

Graham carefully undid the Doctor's boots and pulled them off her feet, covered her toes back up with the blanket, and sat down in the armchair beside her; seemingly content to watch the fire. 

* * *

‘Yaz. Yaz, wake up.’

Yaz sat bolt upright immediately. She’d not meant to fall asleep and the book slid from her hand and landed on the floor with a  _ thud.  _ She winced, hoping it hadn’t woken the Doctor, but when she turned her head she found her friend was already awake, sitting up against the sofa with her blanket in her lap and a soft smile on her face. She looked exhausted, beaten up, and glassy eyed, but  _ awake. _

‘Doctor -’

The Corsair was kneeling in front of her, two fingers on her wrist checking her pulses, but she pulled back with a smile and gave the Doctor a soft kiss on the cheek.

‘You’re fine,’ she declared. ‘Although you look a bit peaky. Fancy a cuppa?’

‘As long as it is  _ just  _ tea, and not the usual stuff you put in it,’ the Doctor retorted, a smile on her lips. 

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the Corsair replied with a smile of her own. 

‘Are you alright, love?’ Graham asked gently. ‘He didn't hurt you did he?’

‘The Judoon?’ the Doctor asked, confused. ‘Nah, although the food left a lot to be desired.’

‘He wasn’t talking about the Judoon,’ Ryan said softly.

The Doctor's face fell as understanding dawned. 

‘Oh, you mean…’

She trailed off, eyes on her feet. 

‘Only, we found you on the floor, Doc,’ Graham said, trying to be as gentle as he could be. ‘And we didn't really get a chance to properly, you know,  _ talk  _ to you about any of it before - well.’

‘Before Ko Sharmus blew up my home planet,’ the Doctor said, her face slack as she continued to stare at the floor.

Her head snapped up again and she stared at Yaz in agitation.

‘Does the Corsair know? Did you tell her?’

‘No, well - I mean, we didn't  _ tell  _ her.’

‘She isn’t exactly thick though, is she, Doc?’ Graham said. ‘I think she worked out most of it on her own. She knows the Master was involved anyway, I’m pretty sure.’

The Doctor looked back at the floor, expression crestfallen, and Yaz carefully covered her hand with her own.

‘We’re sorry, about your home,’ she said gently. ‘And we’re not angry you didn't tell us, although we’re pretty sure you found out ages ago and kept it a secret for months.’

‘Which you didn't need to do, Doc,’ Graham said. ‘You should have told us.’

‘A good time never really came up,’ the Doctor said, looking up at him with a slightly helpless expression.

‘I can count at least four times when you could have mentioned it,’ Ryan said. ‘We’re not having a go!’ he added quickly after Yaz shot him a warning look. ‘We’re just saying, we’re family - aren’t we? You can tell us about this stuff, you shouldn’t just suffer on your own.’

‘And you were suffering, Doctor,’ Yaz said softly. ‘And you still are.’

‘I can’t sneak anything past you lot, can I?’ the Doctor said, the ghost of a smile at her lips. She sat back against the sofa and Yaz realised she still hadn’t let go of her hand. She looked at them all, expression more like her old self, before she looked over at the fireplace and started to speak in a quiet voice.

‘The Master showed me the truth. The truth of who - of  _ what  _ \- I really am,’ she said. ‘I’m not Gallifreyan, I’m not even from this universe! I fell through and was adopted by a woman who experimented on me endlessly. I was forced to regenerate so many times, I had my memories taken from me. Ruth, the past version of me we met in Gloucester, she’s in my past but I don’t know when or what I was doing when I was her. I don’t even know if that her knew the truth about where I’d come from. I don’t have a planet, I don’t have a home, and I don’t know if I’ll ever find out where I’m really from.’ She looked up at them again, expression resigned. ‘That’s what he showed me, the Master,’ she said. ‘And there was more, so much more, but the Time Lords erased it from the Matrix so now I’ll never know the truth.’

‘Doc…’

Graham found he couldn’t find the words, there was a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. He was picturing a younger, smaller Doctor, a little girl with blonde hair being experimented on by a woman who called herself her mother. 

Yaz wiped her eyes and even Ryan let out a quiet sniff.

The Doctor laughed, although it sounded a little choked.

‘Listen to you lot,’ she ribbed them with a smile. ‘You wanted the truth didn't you?’

‘Yeah,’ Ryan agreed, ‘but that was - I mean - you were -’

‘You were a child, Doctor,’ Yaz said, and Graham could tell she was thinking of a small girl with blonde hair too, lost and alone in a completely different universe. ‘How could she?’

‘I turned out alright, didn't I?’ the Doctor said with a shrug. ‘And who knows, maybe one day my own race will find me, whoever they are, though it’s been so long they probably stopped looking.’

‘We didn't,’ Graham said. ‘We didn't stop looking for you, and if they’ve got any sense they won’t either.’

‘No, you didn't, did you?’ the Doctor said with a smile. ‘Thank you, for not giving up on me, even when I was ready to give up myself.’

Yaz pressed her head against the Doctor's shoulder and the Doctor rested her own head against Yaz’s, squeezing their conjoined hands reassuringly. 

‘We missed you,’ Yaz said softly. ‘We really,  _ really,  _ missed you.’

‘Yeah, it’s been far too bloody quiet around here without you, Doc,’ Graham joined in.

‘And I’ve put weight on!’ Ryan exclaimed. ‘That’s from not running so much. You not being around is bad for my health.’

‘And is it just me,’ Graham pointed out suddenly, ‘or has the Corsair been far too long getting you that cuppa?’

‘She’s probably done it on purpose,’ the Doctor said with a smile, eyes drifting closed. ‘I’ll get it eventually.’

‘Thanks for telling us, Doctor,’ Yaz said. ‘And I hope you do get to meet your real family one day, wherever they are.’

‘“My real family”?’ the Doctor said, opening an eye to smile at Yaz. ‘My real family is right here, Yaz. I know exactly where they are.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I'm not sorry for the Specsavers joke. Ryan isn't either.


End file.
